The subject matter herein relates generally to communication systems and receptacle cages for communication systems.
Communication systems are known to have receptacle cages mounted to host circuit boards. The communication systems typically include a board mounted receptacle connector mounted directly to the host circuit board within a receptacle cage. The receptacle connector has contacts including mating ends defining a mating interface for mating with pluggable modules and terminating ends that are terminated directly to the host circuit board. Signal paths are defined from the pluggable modules to the host circuit board through the signal contacts of the receptacle connectors. However, with stacked receptacle connectors, the signal contacts associated with the upper module channel mated with the upper pluggable module have longer signal path lengths than the signal contacts associated with the lower module channel mated with, the lower pluggable module. The board mounted, stacked receptacle connectors suffer from problems with electrical skew. Additionally, the electrical signal paths through the host circuit board to another electrical component may be relatively long leading to problems with signal loss along the electrical signal paths.
Some known communication systems utilize receptacle connectors having cables terminated to the signal contacts rather than terminating the signal contacts directly to a host circuit board. However, incorporating such cabled receptacle connectors into a receptacle cage is problematic. Removal and/or replacement of such cabled receptacle connectors is problematic.
A need remains for a receptacle cage for a communication system that removably receives cabled receptacle connectors.